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Please welcome Bryan Hellard (web site) as a guest blogger on TelBitConsulting.com. He is in the process of testing more than several software-based video conferencing applications, and for the next several weeks, he will be posting his reviews here! I am posting his reviews un-edited, so if you have any comments, concerns, whatever….take it up with Bryan! 🙂

There is an unprecedented amount of software and web-based video conferencing applications available today. It’s my new mission to try as many of them as possible and objectively and subjectively (of course) review them for things like ease of use, quality of product and of course price.

To date, here is the short list of tested or soon to be tested products:

Vidyo Desktop

ClearSea from Lifesize

Connections from Lifesize

TenHands

GreenAppX

EasyMeeting

Huddlv

Fuzebox

OmniJoin

IOCOM insors.com

VidTel

Skype

iMeet/GlobalMeet

Fastmeeting

SeeVogh

AnyMeeting

Zoom.us

Each program will have the benefit of their own full review (or as much as I can do as one person with two computers and an iPad).

Ease of use

What I am looking for is the easiest solution available. Typically, I will not have a video conference with the same person twice. Therefore I am looking for a solution where I will always be the moderator and can send out easy invites via email. I do not want a solution where I have to determine ahead of time who gets a ‘license’. This is pointless for my needs as stated above. The solution should be iPad compatible at least on my end.

Quality of product

As of this date, I do not plan to hold meetings on 65” televisions so pure resolution is not so much of an issue. Quality will be defined as latency (and the program’s ability to self-correct), pixelization and handling of audio. Data sharing is a must. Latency between endpoints cannot be helped, but any latency between someone’s mouth moving and what comes out of it will not be tolerated. At that point, I don’t want to look at the person and want to just listen…just like on a telephone call.

Pricing

Price drives most product usage, and I am cheap. Two competing products, yet one with maybe one extra bell or whistle but a much higher cost will lose. Well, unless you absolutely need that extra bell. What we’re looking for is video chatting with data/screen sharing. That’s it. Busy people don’t need or want complications in a product or pricing scheme. Pricing must be simple, month to month and we must know what it is. There are several products out there with fuzzy math as it relates to their pricing. I don’t want that and my guess is that you don’t either. Please note that I will only share pricing if it is posted on the company’s website or I am given permission to do so.

About my setup

I am testing all products from my home office, using the equipment listed below

HP HPE-400y desktop with:

3.0GHz AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor

8gb RAM

FaceVision Touch Camera N1 with integrated microphone

Generic speakers connected to on-board audio card

Plantronics Blackwire C420-M headset

Acer 23” LCD monitor running 1920×1080

A New iPad with Logitech’s Bluetooth headset 981-000381

HP Pavilion dv7 Laptop w/1.8GHz AMD Phenom and 6 GB RAM

I have a cable connection that runs 10-15 mbps download and 768k-1mbps upload. Both desktop and iPad share a wifi connection from my router that sits in my old home office 30 feet away. My laptop also shares this connection and will be used if necessary for these demos.

Understand that these reviews are mine based on simple and short tests either by myself or with a representative of the product being reviewed. These are not month long product tests under all conditions at all times of day. Also understand that I do tend to be highly critical of products and they will always be compared to some fantasy product out there that has exactly what I want at the price I want to pay. As the saying goes “your mileage may vary” and before taking my word for it, test one or two of these products yourself.